Pasadena Drug-Testing Policy Faces Tough Time With Labor : Workplace: Unions object to random testing and searches. City officials claim they are on solid legal ground.

Pasadena’s new drug-testing policy will face its own test this month when four labor unions, all with strong objections to the policy, begin contract negotiations.

Union leaders for city firefighters, police officers, trash collectors and clerical employees oppose key sections of the proposed policy, which could eventually affect the city’s 1,200 unionized employees. The policy was implemented in January for 400 non-union and management employees.

Objections center on sections that give supervisors the right to order employees to take drug detection tests, to search employee desks and file cabinets, and to call in police to search private storage lockers. Another section opposed by the unions requires employees to snitch on colleagues who violate the policy. Another section abolishes the two-martini business lunch by forbidding city employees to drink alcohol during meal periods.

City officials said no employees have been tested or subjected to the provisions of the new policy, but union criticism of the plan is running high.

The policy is “trampling on individual rights and freedoms,” said Dennis Diaz, president of the Pasadena Police Officers Assn. “It’s too broad and too vague.”

“It’s getting to be more of a Big Brother watching you,” said Linda Cox, president of the Pasadena Assn. of Clerical and Technical Employees.

Pasadena’s policy is far more stringent than those in other California cities and might even be unconstitutional, said Glen Rothner, a Los Angeles attorney who represents the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees in Southern California.

But city officials contend that the policy conforms to recent court rulings on privacy issues.

“Our own legal staff has indicated we’re on safe ground,” said Pasadena Personnel Director Ramon Curiel.

“The policy isn’t too much different from what we’ve done in the past,” added Dorothy Kirkland, the city’s employee relations coordinator.

The policy was written after city officials last year hired a private firm, Confidential Management Services Inc. of San Dimas, to investigate allegations of drug use and theft by Department of Water and Power employees at the city maintenance yard on Mountain Street. Twenty employees quit or were fired, 11 others were suspended, and two received salary reductions as a result of the investigation. There were no arrests, however.

To prevent such problems in the future, the city devised a drug policy that explicitly states what is expected of employees. It took effect in January for non-union employees and for all city job applicants, who must submit to a drug test before employment.

Although the city has the power to unilaterally impose the policy on its unionized employees, city officials decided instead to meet with union representatives to try to persuade them to accept the drug policy provisions, Kirkland said. However, if an impasse is reached, city officials could ask the city Board of Directors to allow them to implement the policy without union consent.

Mayor William Thomson said the board has not considered the policy because of the pending negotiations. He called the policy a “management issue.”

He added: “We do not see that it would violate the rights of the employee, but it certainly is a matter to be negotiated with the various organizations.”

City officials may find themselves arguing the same points over and over again with each union. “All of us disagree with the city about the same things,” clerical union President Cox said.

The main disagreement is with a provision allowing the city to search--without employee consent--desks, file cabinets and city-owned cars used by employees. Under the policy, supervisors may summon police officers to search lockers assigned for employees’ personal use, but they must follow privacy laws, including obtaining search warrants when the circumstances require it.

That section violates rights specifically guaranteed to public employees under the U.S. and California constitutions, argued labor attorney Rothner, who said public employees have a right of privacy for personal storage spaces under a 1987 U.S. Supreme Court ruling. In that case, a state hospital employee in Napa, Calif., was fired after hospital officials obtained evidence of work-related misconduct when they searched his locked file cabinets. The court held that public employees are protected by the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which bans unreasonable searches and seizures.

“There has to be some suspected misconduct on the part of a particular employee before that employee’s privacy can be invaded,” Rothner said.

Pasadena’s policy also ignores language regulating locker searches for law enforcement officers spelled out in state Government Code sections informally known as the “Officers’ Bill of Rights,” said Diaz of the police labor group. “Pasadena’s policy kind of steps over that,” Diaz said.

Union representatives also object to a requirement that city employees, when ordered by a supervisor, must submit to a urine, breath or blood test. Failure to comply is considered insubordination and will result in disciplinary action.

“Any supervisor at any time could send someone to be drug tested,” said Annemarie Galasso, business representative for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.

Supervisors should not have the sole responsibility of determining when a drug test should be given, Galasso said. The city should use objective measures, such as skill tests patterned after roadside sobriety tests and physical examinations by doctors, to determine whether emotional problems, medication or illness may be causing symptoms similar to drug abuse, she said.

Other controversial sections are those requiring city employees to either report a drug-abusing colleague to supervisors or to “take other appropriate action,” such as preventing the employee from working while under the influence. Kirkland said an employee who fails to do so could be disciplined, especially if an on-the-job accident occurs.

Rothner said he believes the section is unique to Pasadena and poses legal, practical and philosophical problems. It turns the “entire work force into informants and snitches,” he added.

Cox objected to another section that prohibits employees from possessing or using alcohol during meal periods. “I don’t like the city telling me what I can and can’t do while I’m off work,” she said.

In these sections, Pasadena has jumped ahead of case law and other California cities, which have proceeded more cautiously with their policies, especially in the area of searches, labor union officials said.

“For the most part, cities have been quite restrained in these areas,” Rothner said.

JoAnne Spears, general counsel for the League of California Cities in Sacramento, agreed.

“My impression is the emphasis has mostly been on the testing issues and less attention has been paid to the search issues,” Spears said.

Among cities in Southern California, Los Angeles has taken a cautious approach, said Assistant City Atty. Leslie E. Brown, who is working on the city’s drug policy. The city tests job applicants for “safety sensitive” jobs and is devising rules for testing current employees, Brown said.

David Jacobs, Pasadena’s risk management director who helped write the city’s policy, said it focuses on creating a safe environment for city employees and the public. “We’re certainly trying to be on the cutting edge because we think this is such a serious problem.”

While the city has a program to assist employees who have drug problems, Jacobs said the low success rate of such programs prompted the city to adopt what he called a “very realistic policy.”

“If you have a drug problem, we don’t want you on the work site,” he said.